19
THERE WERE MORE heavy dark beams in the dining room, more off-white walls. If the chairs were a clue, the dining table was black and silver. But the table was hidden under a tablecloth that looked like another Navajo rug. Though this one had some color, dull red stripes running with black and white. There was even a black metal candelabra with red candles in the middle of the table. It was nice to see some color that hadn't been added by Donna. It had taken me years to break Jean-Claude of his fixation on black and white decor. Since I was just Edward's friend and nothing more, it wasn't my business how he decorated.
There was a fireplace in the corner nearly identical to the one in the living room except for a black piece of wood set into the white stucco. I would have called it a mantel, but it didn't stick out that far. The true mantel was decorated in more red candles of every shape and size, some sitting with their waxy bottoms directly on the mantel, some in black metal holders. There were two round ones that stuck up above the rest on the kind of holders where you spear the candle to hold it into place. A silver-edged mirror that looked antique was hung behind the candles so that when they were burned, you'd get their reflection. Strange, I hadn't thought Edward was the candlelight type.
There were no windows in the room, just a molded doorway leading out the other side. The walls were utterly white and utterly blank. Somehow the lack of decoration made the room seem more claustrophobic rather than less.
A man appeared in the far doorway. He had to bend over to keep his bald head from smacking the top of the door. He was taller than Dolph, who was six foot eight, which meant he was the tallest person I'd ever met. The only hair on his head was heavy black eyebrows and a shadow of beard along his chin and cheeks. He was wearing the draw string bottoms of men's pajamas. They were black and looked satin. He had on slippers, the kind that have no heels and always seem in danger of falling off. Olaf, because who else could it be, moved in the slippers like they were part of his flesh. Once he got over stooping through the door, he moved like a well-oiled machine, muscles rippling under his pale skin. He was tall, but there wasn't an ounce of fat on him. It was all hard, lean, muscle. He walked around the table towards us, and I moved without thinking to keep the table between us.
He stopped moving. I stopped moving. We stared at each other across the table. Bernardo was at the end of the table, nearest the door, watching us. He looked worried. Probably wondering if he was supposed to come to my rescue if I needed one. Or maybe he just didn't like the tension level in the room. I know I didn't.
If I hadn't moved away as he walked in, would the tension level have been lower? Maybe. But I'd learned long ago to trust my gut, and my gut said, to stay out of reach. But I could try and be nice. "You must be Olaf. I didn't catch your last name. I'm Anita Blake."
His eyes were dark brown set deep in the bones of his face like twin caves, as if even in daylight his eyes would be shadowed. He just looked at me. It was as if I had not spoken.
I tried again. I'm nothing if not persistent. "Hello, Earth to Olaf." I stared into his face, and he never blinked, never acknowledged my words in any way. If he hadn't been glaring at me, I'd have said he was ignoring me.
I glanced at Bernardo, but kept my gaze on the big man across the table. "What gives, Bernardo? He does talk, right?"
Bernardo nodded. "He talks."
I turned my full attention back to Olaf. "You're just not going to talk to me, is that it?"
He just glared at me.
"You think not hearing the dulcet sounds of your voice is some kind of punishment? Most men are such jabber mouths. Silence is nice for a change. Thanks for being so considerate, Olaf, baby." I made the last word into two very separate syllables.
"I am not your baby." The voice was deep and matched that vast chest. There was also a guttural accent underneath all that clear English, German maybe.
"It speaks. Be still my heart."
Olaf frowned. "I did not agree with your being included on this hunt. We do not need help from a woman, any woman."
"Well, Olaf, honey, you need help from someone because the three of you haven't come up with shit on the mutilations."
A flush of color crept up his neck into his face. "Do not call me that."
"What? Honey?"
He nodded.
"You prefer sweetheart, honeybun, pumpkin?"
The color spread from pink to red, and was getting darker. "Do not use terms of endearment to me. I am no one's sweetheart."
I'd been all set to make another scathing remark, but that stopped me, and I thought of something better. "How sad for you."
"What are you talking about?"
"How sad that you are no one's sweetheart."
The color that had been fading from his face flushed dark now, almost as if he were blushing. "Are you feeling sorry for me?" His voice rose a notch, not yelling but like the low growl of a dog just before it bites. As he got more emotional, the accent got thicker. Very German, very lowland. Grandmother Blake was from Baden-Baden, on the border between Germany and France, but great-uncle Otto had been from Hamburg. I couldn't be a hundred percent sure, but it sounded like the same accent.
"Everyone should be someone's sweetheart," I said, but my voice was mild. I wasn't angry. I was baiting him, and I shouldn't have. My only excuse was that all the talk of rape had made me scared of him, and I didn't like that. So I was doing something that was actually very masculine. I was pulling the tail of the beast to make myself feel braver. Stupid. The moment I realized why I was doing it, I tried to stop.
"I am no one's fool, and that means I am no one's sweetheart." He spoke carefully, enunciating each word but his accent was thick enough to walk on. He had started to move slowly around the table, muscles tense like some big predatory cat.
I flashed my jacket on the left side, showing the gun. He stopped moving forward, but his face was furious. "Let's start over, Olaf," I said. "Edward and Bernardo here told me what a big bad guy you were and that made me nervous, which made me defensive. When I'm defensive, I'm usually a pain in the ass. Sorry about that. Let's pretend that I wasn't being a smart ass, and you weren't being all big and bad, and start over."
He stilled. That was the only word I had for it. The quivering tension in his muscles eased like water running down hill. But it wasn't gone, just shoved away somewhere. I had a glimpse into Olaf. He operated from a great dark pit of rage. That it was directed mostly at women was accidental. The rage needed some target or he'd turn into one of those people that drive their cars through restaurant windows and start shooting strangers.
"Edward has been most insistent that you are to be here, but nothing you will say can make me like it." His words were pulling free of the accent as he regained control of his temper.
I nodded. "Are you from Hamburg?"
He blinked, and for an instant puzzlement replaced the sullenness. "What?"
"Are you from Hamburg?"
He seemed to think about it for a second or two, then gave a small nod.
"I thought I recognized the accent."
The scowl was back full force. "You are an expert on accents?" He managed to sound sarcastic.
"No. My Uncle Otto was from Hamburg."
He blinked again, and the scowl wilted around the edges. "You are not German." He sounded very sure.
"My father's family is; from Baden-Baden on the edge of the Black Forest but Uncle Otto was from Hamburg.
"You said only your uncle had the accent."
"By the time I came along, most of the family, except for my grandmother, had been in this country so long there was no accent, but Uncle Otto never lost his."
"He's dead now." Olaf made it half question, half statement.
I nodded.
"How did he die?"
"Grandma Blake says Aunt Gertrude nagged him to death."
His lips twitched. "Women are tyrants if a man allows it." His voice was a touch softer now.
"That's true of men or women. If one partner is weak, the other partner moves in and takes charge."
"Nature abhors a vacuum," Bernardo said.
We glanced at him. I don't know what the expressions were on our faces, but Bernardo held his hands up and said, "Sorry to interrupt."
Olaf and I went back to looking at each other. He was close enough now that I might not be able to draw the Browning in time. But if I moved away now, all my peace-making efforts would be for nothing. He'd either be insulted or see it as weakness on my part. Neither reaction would be helpful. So I stood my ground and tried not to look as tense as I felt, because no matter how calm I sounded, my stomach was in one hard knot. I had one chance to make this work. If I blew it, then the rest of this visit was going to be an armed camp, and we needed to be solving the crime, not fighting each other.
"You are either a leader or being led," Olaf said. "Which are you?"
"I'll follow if someone's worth following."
"And who decides, Anita Blake, who is worth following?"
I had to smile. "I do."
His lips twitched again. "And if Edward put me in charge, would you follow me?"
"I trust Edward's judgment, so yeah. But let me ask you the same question. Would you follow me if Edward put me in charge?"
He flinched. "No."
I nodded. "Great, we know where we stand."
"And where is that?" he asked.
"I'm sort of goal-oriented, Olaf. I came down here to solve a crime and I'm going to do that. If that means at some point taking orders from you, so be it. If Edward puts me in charge of you, and you don't like it, take it up with him."
"Just like a woman to put the responsibility off on a man's shoulders."
I counted to ten, and shrugged. "You talk like your opinion matters to me, Olaf. I don't give a damn what you think of me."
"Women always care what men think of them."
I laughed then. "You know I was starting to feel insulted, but you are just too funny." I meant it.
He leaned towards me trying to use his height to intimidate. It was impressive, but I've been the smallest kid around for as long as I can remember. "I will not take it up with Edward. I will take it up with you. Or don't you have the balls to stand up to me?" He gave a harsh laugh. "Oh, I forgot, you don't have balls." He reached for me in a quick motion. I think he meant to grope me, but I didn't wait to see. I threw myself backward into the floor and was drawing the Browning before my butt hit the floor. Drawing the gun meant I didn't have time to slap my hands down and take the impact the way you were supposed to. I hit hard and felt the shock all the way up my spine.
He'd drawn a blade as long as his forearm from somewhere. The blade was coming down, and the Browning wasn't quite pointed at his chest. It would be a race to see who drew first blood, but it was almost a guarantee that we'd both bleed. Everything slowed down to that crystalline vision, as if I had all the time in the world to point the gun, to avoid the blade, and at the same time everything was happening too fast. Too fast to stop it or change it.
Edward's voice cut through the room. "Stop it! The first one to draw blood, I will personally shoot."
We froze in mid-action. Olaf blinked, and it was as if time had resumed normal flow. Maybe, just maybe, we weren't going to kill each other tonight. But I had the gun pointed at his chest, and his hand was still upraised with the knife. Though knife seemed too small a word, sword was more like it. Where had he pulled it from?
"Drop the knife, Olaf," Edward said.
"Have her put up the gun, first." I met those hard brown eyes and saw a hatred there like what I'd seen earlier in Lieutenant Marks' face. They both hated me for being things that I could not change: one for an innate God-given talent, and the other because I was a woman. Funny, how one unreasoning hatred looks so much like another.
I kept the gun very steadily pointed at his chest. I'd let all the air go out of my body, and was waiting, waiting for Olaf to decide what we'd be doing tonight. Either we'd be fighting crime, or we'd be digging a grave, maybe two if he was good enough. I knew what my vote was, but I also knew that the final vote wasn't mine. It wasn't even Olaf's. It was his hatred's.
"You drop the knife, and Anita will put up the gun," Edward said.
"Or she will shoot me while I'm unarmed."
"She won't do that."
"She is afraid of me now," Olaf said.
"Maybe," Edward said, "but she's more afraid of me."
Olaf looked down at me, a glimmer of puzzlement rising up through the hatred and anger. "I am going to shove this blade inside her. She fears me."
"Tell him, Anita."
I hoped I knew what Edward wanted me to say. "I will shoot you twice in the chest. You may get a slice of me before you fall to the ground. If you're really good, you might even slit my throat, but you'll still be dead." I hoped he made up his mind soon because it was awkward holding a shooting stance while sitting on your butt. I was going to get a crick in my back if I didn't get to move soon. The fear was fading, leaving only a dull emptiness behind. I was tired, and the night was still young. Hours to go before I'd sleep. I was tired of Olaf. I had a feeling if I didn't shoot him tonight, I'd get another chance.
"Who are you more afraid of, Anita ¨C Olaf or me?" Edward asked.
I kept my gaze on Olaf and said, "You, Edward."
"Tell him why."
It sounded like a teacher telling his student what to say, but from Edward I'd take it. "Because you would have never let me get the drop on you like this. You would have never let your emotions compromise your safety."
Olaf blinked at me. "You do not fear me?" He made it a question and seemed disappointed. There was something almost little-boyish about his disappointment.
"I'm not afraid of anything I can kill," I said.
"Edward can be killed," Olaf said.
"Yes, but can he be killed by anyone in this room? That's the question."
Olaf looked at me, puzzled now more than angry. He began to lower the blade, slowly.
Edward said, "Drop it," in a quiet voice.
Olaf dropped the blade to the floor. It hit with a ringing clang.
I got to my knees and then scuttled backwards along the edge of the table, lowering the gun as I moved. I got to my feet at the head of the table near Bernardo. I looked at him. "Move over around by Edward."
"I didn't do anything," he said.
"Just do it, Bernardo. I need a little space right now."
He opened his mouth as if to argue, but Edward cut him off. "Do it."
Bernardo did it.
When they were all at the other end of the room, I put the gun up.
Edward had an armful of cardboard box. It was overbrimming with files. He set it down on the tabletop.
"You didn't even have a gun," Olaf said.
"I didn't need one," Edward said.
Olaf pushed past Edward to the hallway beyond. I hoped he was going pack and leave, but doubted we'd get that lucky. I hadn't known Olaf for hour, and I already knew why he was no one's sweetie.